Getting Started.

So I got into 40k back in it's 2nd edition phase. I was at Dark-Con in Oklahoma City with my brother Curtis when we saw this table set up with all these really cool miniatures. One side was Space Marines painted in black, I'm not sure they had any particular chapter in mind, and the other side was old school Tyranids.

The guy who was running the table invited me to play along with some other guy whose name I don't remember at all. Now back during 2nd edition your average game was 2000 pts and lasted 6+ hours at a minimum. We literally got into the 2nd or 3rd turn before everyone had to do something else. But I was hooked.

I begged family for cash on my following birthday so that I could get my own starter set. This box included 2 squads of space marines with sergants and heavy weapons, as well as an ork force with gretchin support. One thing about those gretchin, they had very pointy helmets and the absolute last thing you wanted to do was step on one in the middle of the night in bare feet. I swear I still have pointy gretchin helmets still embedded in my feet.

Pointy helmeted bastards!

I never painted the orks, I just wasn't into them at the time and I made Curtis play them every time. It's a perk of being the oldest brother, the youngest always has to be Cobra, or the Orks, or the Cleveland Browns.

That's a bit of a low blow, I don't follow football at all.

So the two squads of space marines I put together and painted one up as close to Space Wolves as i could get, then the other became Blood Angels. I couldn't paint worth anything, still really can't but at least I've learned tricks to compensate for that.

Then I started building on top of those. Got some eldar, got some tyranid warriors and on and on, nothing really put together or with any sort of theme, just whatever I could get. I never really got it together until several years later after getting married.

We were living back at mom's house while we were saving up for our first house when my brothers and I started talking about 40k again and how much fun we had playing it before. I think Curtis mis-remembered his exact amount of fun since he always complained about being the bad guy. I tried tracking down what I had left of my space marines but between 2 moves and having them stored at various friends' houses they were all gone.

I started back up with the Imperial Guard while Curtis went with the Tau who were a brand new army at the time. We were painting and building and having an awesome time. We built our first gaming table together. It wasn't a solid table, we had 12"x12" tiles that we build terrain onto, then divided them up with 12"x6" road sections and once we were set we got to playing.

Curtis definately got his revenge for every time he had to be the Orks or Cobra or the Browns.

I can't remember a single game that entire first year we played that I won. I think the best I managed was a draw and that was only once or twice. He still wipes the floor with me regularly. I have had one or two victories with my Imperial Guard against him, a handful of wins with my Tyranids and have utterly decimated him with my Orks. I'm always surprised at how much trouble he has with the orks since I have no specialty units but the best he's managed against them is a draw and even then it was down to the wire.

Actually they're not really my Orks. I'm starting them for my oldest son so that when he's able to understand the game I can start teaching him and their will be an army ready for him. I picked Orks for him because they share a lot of similarities. Wild, bursting with energy, completely fearless and ready to leap into anything without thinking twice.

Also now that he has access to watercolor paints they both tend to be very green....